Mt Kenya rivers disappear

By Patrick Mathangani

Ever since she settled in Mutiriri village in Laikipia East in 1984, Esther Njeri, 49, has depended on Ontulili River.

However, around 1992, the river that flows from Mt Kenya became unpredictable. Water levels would go down drastically, sometimes slowing down to a trickle.

Other times, it would flow downstream with gusto as if with a newfound will to keep going.

"At the time I was clearing bushes to build a house, it had enough water for everyone," Njeri said on the banks of the river, where she had taken family linen to wash.

Big horticultural farmers are accused of diverting river water for irrigation.

Residents say rivers started drying up in 1990s when big companies, mostly owned by white farmers, set up camp in the area.

Some rivers in Mt Kenya have been reduced to streams. PHOTO: BONIFACE MWANGI

Most of the farms are located upstream and block water. By the time the rivers reach downstream, there is barely enough left for everyone. "If they want water, they should draw a little and leave the rest for us," said Njeri.

Scores of nearby rivers — such as Timau, Nanyuki and Naromoru —have seen water levels go down to dangerous levels. Authorities have been forced to close down water projects to save those downstream.

A few kilometres from Ontulili River is a scorched valley, which once used to be Muramati River. During its heyday, the river was a vibrant source of livelihood for residents. "Now, even monkeys have nothing to drink," said Samuel Muriuki.

Muramati is one of the 20 rivers that have dried up in the past decade. Many more could be on the way to oblivion.

Scorched earth

The mountain, which is Africa’s second highest after Mt Kilimanjaro, is the source of scores of rivers that nourish large swathes of Kenya and districts hundreds of kilometres away.

Wanton destruction of the environment through encroachment, cutting down of trees and unregulated use of water from rivers now threaten to wipe out this water fountain.

Experts who spoke to The Standard on Sunday warn unless some drastic action is taken, there would be nothing but scorched earth in coming decades.

The arid districts of Laikipia and Isiolo depend on the rivers which empty into Ewaso Nyiro, while residents in districts nearby — Nyeri, larger Meru, Kirinyaga and Embu — draw their water from Mt Kenya rivers.

The Tana, where Kenya’s biggest hydro-electricity projects are located, owes its existence to the mountain.

Human encroachment and bad policies over the years have led to the destruction of the mountain’s ecosystem and made water sources to dry up. The most wanton destruction was human settlement sanctioned by the former Kanu regime in the 1990s. One of the most visible effects happened in Ontulili Forest on the Meru side, where thousands of people were settled on about 2,000 hectares.

The new residents settled at the extremely cold environment some 2,200m above see level, cleared large swathes of forest for settlement and grazing. Although the Narc Government eventually settled them in an alternative area in 2004, only large treeless plains remain of what used to be a sanctuary for various tree species and animals.

The area, which borders the moorland, was unfit for human habitation. However, political interests of a former Cabinet minister took centre stage.

"Some of the river sources in this area have dried up. All you can see are rocks," said Mr Frederick Njau of the Green Belt Movement.

The organisation, founded by Nobel Laureate Prof Wangari Maathai, is planting trees in Karuri, Kiriti and Kieni-ini.

Njau said the project aims at rehabilitating the catchment as well as restoring the natural richness of vegetation by planting indigenous trees.

Most of the area formerly settled on is now empty plain used for grazing.

Uncontrolled cutting of trees has been linked to global warming. This is a phenomenon where average global temperatures are rising, mainly due to the release of "green houses gases." The gases, which include carbon dioxide (trees help in absorbing the gas) trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere, resulting in rising temperatures.

As a result, residents and rivers from around Mt Kenya are suffering for the sins of the Government, and actions of people around the world. Due to global warming, glaciers on the mountain are melting.

This is devastating as glaciers act as reservoirs, which melt during the hot seasons to ensure rivers flow throughout the year. Experts have warned that the snow may disappear.

" The mountain used to be covered in snow, and you could not see any rocks," said Mr Godfrey Wanjohi, chairman of Nanyuki River Water Users Association. He has lived in the area for decades.

The association has secured funding for a Sh126 million dam at Secret Valley in Kahurura Forest, which would be used to hold water for use during dry seasons. However, he said an investor with powerful Government connections, who wanted to use the site to build a hotel, was resisting the move.

There are signs that recent measures to conserve rivers, including the Water Act, are not being followed. Just a few metres from where Njeri stood expressing her worries about the disappearing Ontulili River, The Standard on Sunday saw a furrow drawing water to the nearby Kenya Horticultural Exporters farm.

Using gravity, the furrow, which is several hundred metres long, runs over a "bridge" across the river before emptying its load into a pipe. At one point, it diverts water to another nearby farm.

According to the Water Act, it is illegal to use furrows to draw water since it results in wastage through seepage and evaporation.

A man who said he is the human resources manager for the firm, but declined to give his name, referred us to Water Resources Management Authority in Nanyuki.

Nanyuki sub-regional manager for Ewaso Nyiro North Catchment Area, Mr William Hamisi, confirmed it is illegal to use furrows. He said the authority has discussed the issue with the firm. "We’ve destroyed some furrows and issued temporary permits for others," said Hamisi.

However, he said individual users with small mobile pumps were difficult to regulate. For instance, Naromoru River had more than 1,000 such users, he said.

He said major rivers, including Nanyuki and Timau, have recorded a decline in water levels of up to five metres since 1990s.

"Communities downstream can barely get enough. This has caused conflicts," he said.

Hamisi added that the authority has been forced to ration water in some circumstances. About 70 per cent of the population in the affected areas — including Laikipia East and North, parts of Nyeri North and some parts of Meru — face water shortages.

Hamisi said the river now remains dry for five months instead of three.

The authority has drawn five-year plans to reverse the trend.

Counterpoint: Dangers of Focusing Solely on Climate Change

No one with any scientific sense now disagrees about the severity of the climate crisis. But some people — and some magazines — believe that climate change trumps every other problem. If we take this argument to its extreme, we should ignore any environmental concern that gets in the way of reducing emissions. And that's just plain wrong.

Make no mistake: Tackling climate change is vital. But to see everything through the lens of short-term CO₂ reductions, letting our obsession with carbon blind us to the bigger picture, is to court catastrophe.

Climate change is not a discrete issue; it's a symptom of larger problems. Fundamentally, our society as currently designed has no future. We're chewing up the planet so fast, in so many different ways, that we could solve the climate problem tomorrow and still find that environmental collapse is imminent. Myopic responses will only hasten its arrival.

Take the proposal that we cut down old trees in favor of new ones. First, I don't buy the carbon accounting presented to advance this procrustean plan: Older trees can absorb CO₂ for centuries after reaching maturity, while replanted forests can emit more CO₂ than they sequester until the new trees are as much as 20 years old.

But even if wired's math were correct, this would still be a crap fix for climate change. Chopping down forests causes massive soil erosion and leads to desertification, making repeated tree plantings a dodgy prospect. As monocultures, tree farms are far more vulnerable to pest infestations. And batches of trees planted at the same time are more susceptible to wildfires, causing the carbon they're supposed to be sequestering to go up in smoke.

Old-growth forests, coupled with a broad program of woodlands restoration and sustainable forestry, can provide not only climate relief and ecologically responsible wood and biomass harvests but a slew of other essential ecological services, from salmon habitats to flood prevention. It's a heck of a lot more costly — in both money and emissions — to build massive dams and fish farms than to simply protect the forests we already have.

Another example of how carbon blindness leads to counterproductive policies: embracing nuclear power as a clean energy source. This argument assumes that other clean alternatives will not improve in efficiency or affordability during the 10 years it would take to implement a nuclear program. That's short-term thinking. If we invested the money that we would spend on new nuclear facilities more wisely (and eliminated subsidies on fossil fuels), alternatives like wind, solar, hydroelectric, and wave power could deliver a clean-energy future more cheaply and probably sooner, without any of the security or health risks of nuclear plants. Nuclear power may have a role to play, but it would be far better to create a flexible energy system that draws on many clean sources, instead of on a single panacea. Again, a cut-carbon-at-all-costs approach blinds us to more-sustainable, and ultimately more-promising, solutions.

To have any hope of staving off collapse, we need to move forward with measures that address many interrelated problems at once. We're not going to persuade people in the developing world to go without, but neither can we afford a planet on which everyone lives like an American. Billions more people living in suburbs and driving SUVs to shopping malls is a recipe for planetary suicide. We can't even afford to continue that way of life ourselves.

We don't need a War on Carbon. We need a new prosperity that can be shared by all while still respecting a multitude of real ecological limits — not just atmospheric gas concentrations, but topsoil depth, water supplies, toxic chemical concentrations, and the health of ecosystems, including the diversity of life they depend upon.

We can build a future in which technology, design, smart incentives, and wise policies make it possible to deliver a high quality of life at lower ecological cost. But that brighter, greener future is attainable only if we embrace the problems we face in all their complexity. To do otherwise is tantamount to clear-cutting the very future we're trying to secure.

Alex Steffen (editor AT worldchanging.com) is the editor of the green futurism site Worldchanging.com and of the book Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century.

Source

'Fewer hurricanes' as world warms

By Mark Kinver Science and nature reporter, BBC News

Hurricanes and tropical storms will become less frequent by the end of the century as a result of climate change, US researchers have suggested.

But the scientists added their data also showed that there would be a "modest increase" in the intensity of these extreme weather events.

The findings are at odds with some other studies, which forecast a greater number of hurricanes in a warmer world.

The researchers' results appear in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The team from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (Noaa) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) said its findings did not support the notion that human-induced climate change was causing an increase in the number of hurricanes and tropical storms.

"There have been some studies published that have suggested that this is the case, but this modelling study does not support that idea," observed lead author Tom Knutson.

"Rather, we actually simulate a reduction in hurricane frequency in the Atlantic."

Eye of the storm

Although the study projected that there would be fewer extreme weather events in the future, Dr Knutson said that these storms were likely to be more powerful.

"The model is simulating increased intensity of the hurricanes that do occur, and also increased rainfall rates.

"This is something that has been seen in previous studies, and the IPCC use this [scenario] as a likely projection for future climate warming.

We do not regard this study as the last word on this topic Dr Tom Knutson, Noaa meteorologist

"These changes in intensity are still fairly modest in size."

A previous study by Noaa scientists showed a 4% increase in storm intensity for every 1C (1.8F) increase in sea surface temperature. Yet, he explained, this study suggested only a 1-2% increase.

A sea surface temperature (SST) above 26.5C (79.7F) is one of the key factors in the formation and feeding of a hurricane.

Over recent decades, the surfaces of most tropical oceans have warmed by up to 0.5C (0.9F), which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) believes has been caused by an increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

In November 2006, the global community of tropical cyclone researchers gathered at a workshop organised by the World Meteorological Organization to consider the impact of human activity on the frequency and intensity of cyclones.

HOW HURRICANES FORM Sea surface temperatures above 26.5C (79.7F) A pre-existing weather disturbance Moisture in the atmosphere Favourable conditions, such as light winds or weak wind shear

In a concluding statement, the researchers said that although there was evidence both for and against the existence of a detectable anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate record, no firm conclusion could be made.

One reason for the uncertainty is the changes in observation methods used to record Atlantic hurricanes - a record that dates back to 1850.

From 1944, air reconnaissance flights were used to monitor tropical storms and hurricanes. This development allowed researchers to monitor a much greater area and not rely on ships' logs and storms reaching land.

And from the late 1960s, satellite technology has been used to monitor and track hurricanes.

Therefore, a reliable record of past hurricane activity only stretches back about 35 years.

Natural variations that affect SSTs - such as El Nino and La Nina episodes and the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation - add to the difficulty of identifying the influence of human-induced climate change on the frequency and intensity of hurricanes.

Model mechanics

Dr Knutson's colleague and co-author, Isaac Held, said the team's model used a different approach to previous efforts, which gave them a high degree of confidence in their results.

"Most of the literature to date on hurricanes and climate change has used statistical techniques," he said.

"You've had time series of hurricane activity and time series of sea surface temperatures, and people correlate them."

Because there was a high degree of confidence that the sea surface temperature trend was going to continue to rise, Dr Held explained, people had "tried to conclude that hurricane activity will increase rather dramatically in the future".

"We tried to simulate the fundamental fluid dynamics and thermodynamics that control hurricane genesis in the Atlantic in a numerical model to a very high resolution."

He added that the team ran data from the past 25 years through the model, and it returned results closely correlated to what actually occurred.

"It is interesting and important to understand why it is that this model is capable of simulating an increase in hurricane activity that we have seen in recent decades, yet it predicts a decrease in the future.

"This implies that we cannot simply extrapolate the past 25 years into the future."

Dr Knutson said that he did not expect the study's findings to end the scientific debate surrounding the impact of human-induced climate change on tropical storms.

"We do not regard this study as the last word on this topic," he told reporters.

"The main point that we want to emphasise is that there is no evidence in this study that we are seeing large greenhouse-gas-driven increases in Atlantic hurricane or tropical storm frequencies."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/7404846.stm

Published: 2008/05/18 20:52:13 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

Carbon Taxes and the Green Party

The Green Party of Canada is determined to wean nation from fossil fuel addiction.

Quebec's carbon tax level is minimal, if "every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," the Quebec carbon tax could prove significant. In Feb. 2008 British Columbia announced a revenue-neutral carbon tax that qualifies as a giant second step. As reported in Canadian Press, the carbon tax will start on July 1, 2008 at a rate of $10 (Canadian) per metric ton of carbon dioxide, and will rise by $5/tonne annually to reach $30 per tonne of CO₂ in 2012. The carbon tax revenues will be returned to taxpayers through personal income and business income tax cuts, according to BC finance minister Carole Taylor, who spearheaded the push for the tax.

Taylor estimates that the BC carbon tax will equate to an additional 2.4 cents (Canadian) on a litre of gasoline, or 9.1 cents Canadian (9.2 cents U.S.) per gallon -- triple the level of the Quebec carbon tax. Moreover, the BC rate itself is set to rise by $5/tonne annual increments until it triples, to $30/tonne, by 2012. At that point the tax will equate to 7.24 cents per litre of gasoline and 8.29 cents per litre of diesel, making it roughly eight times as large as Quebec's tax.

The first 40 pages of the 200-page BC Budget and Fiscal Plan, dated Feb. 19, 2008, spell out the rationale, impacts and mechanics of the British Columbia carbon tax, including the revenue return provisions. These materials are essential reading for any carbon tax advocate seeking to master not only the details of carbon taxing but communication tools for making a carbon tax palatable to the public. We also highly recommend Alan Durning's March 13 Gristmill article, which usefully parses four principles embodied in BC's carbon tax: revenue neutrality, phased implementation, protection for families, and broad coverage.

In mid-2007 we reported that Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May was calling for a nationwide tax of $50 (Can.) per tonne of carbon, with the level doubling in 2020. Allowing for the nearly 4-fold molecular-weight ratio of CO₂ to C, the British Columbia carbon tax will meet the Green Party's goal in mid-2009.

source: http://www.carbontax.org/progress/where-carbon-is-taxed/

Gas prices bring out the worst in candidates

By Steve Chapman

In the realm of energy policy, there are a great many bad ideas and a very few good ones. The usual practice of presidential candidates is to 1) sift through all these proposals, 2) separate the wheat from the chaff, and 3) keep the chaff.

This year, the two parties are competing to show who is most eager to discard sound economics and long-term prudence in favor of appeasing aggrieved motorists. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are pandering with a proposal to punish oil companies with a windfall profits tax. John McCain has targeted the same group by urging a federal gas tax holiday from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

What motivates them is high pump prices, which are at odds with the popular view of cheap gasoline as a national birthright. One common defect of the candidates' measures, though, is that they would not actually reduce prices.

The Democratic option rests on the unshakable belief that Big Oil is guilty of chronic profiteering at public expense. In fact, from 1987 through 2006, oil and gas companies did worse than other industrial companies on return on investment in all but four years.

When the price of gasoline is high, drivers notice. But when it's low, as it has been for most of the period since 1982, everyone takes it for granted.

No idea can be definitively judged until it has been tried, which makes the Obama-Clinton approach particularly hard to defend. Congress, you see, enacted a windfall profits tax on oil back during the Carter administration. You would think Democrats would not want to remind voters of that president or embrace his errors, but you would be wrong.

By almost any standard, the last windfall profits tax was self-defeating. According to a 2006 study by the Congressional Research Service , it generated less than one-fourth of the revenues that were expected. Worse yet, it reduced domestic oil production by as much as 8 percent.

Obama has yet to provide details of his plan. Under Clinton's version, if a company's profits rose above a specified level, the government would take 50 percent of the "windfall" -- in addition to what it reaps from the existing corporate income tax, which tops out at 35 percent.

The expropriation would deter investment in exploration and drilling by reducing the potential payoff. It would depress the supply of oil over the long run, which would push prices up, not down. Punishing Big Oil would mean hurting ourselves.

McCain avoids this error in favor of a different one. He wants to stop collecting federal gas taxes for three months, which he says "will be an immediate economic stimulus -- taking a few dollars off the price of a tank of gas." It sounds like a simple, sure remedy, and it is simple and sure. It's just not a remedy.

As energy analyst Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute points out, prices are now at the level required to balance supply and demand. Cut prices by the amount of the gas tax, and consumption will rise, pushing prices back up. So drivers would get no holiday, and the economy would get no stimulus.

About the only effect would be to "transfer money from the federal government to the oil companies," says Taylor. If the oil companies don't deserve a windfall profits tax, neither do they deserve an additional windfall. The gas tax hiatus would also enlarge the federal deficit, since McCain would take general revenues to make up the loss to the highway trust fund -- and at the moment, there aren't any extra revenues waiting to be spent.

Besides proposing useless or damaging ideas, the candidates have also passed up the single best idea for energy policy: a carbon tax that would curb use of fuels that release greenhouse gases, while encouraging development of clean alternatives. Better yet would be a carbon tax whose revenues go to cut payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, rewarding work without raising the deficit.

It's a win-win concept with wide support among economists, but almost none among politicians. That's the nature of energy policy in an election year: Any bad idea may be adopted, while the good ones remain orphans.

Steve Chapman's column is distributed by Creators Syndicate.

source: http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/17865649.html

Green and Democrat: What's the Difference?

The Green Party & Green candidates compared to Democratic leadership &
Democratic candidates on important issues

Green Presidential Candidates: Jesse Johnson, Cynthia McKinney, Kent
Mesplay, Kat Swift Democratic

Presidential Candidates: Hillary Clinton,
Barack Obama


The Iraq War

Green Party & Green candidates
-- opposed the invasion and occupation from the beginning
-- favor immediate withdrawal of all US troops and contracted personnel
from Iraq
-- call for Congress to cut off funding for the war
-- seek to hold the Bush Administration responsible for deceiving the
public with false claims that Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs, posed a
threat to the US and to Iraq's own neighbors, had conspired with al Qaeda,
and played a role in the 9/11 attacks
-- oppose 'benchmarks' that would allow US and UK corporations to take
control over most Iraqi oil resources

Democratic leadership, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama
-- supported the Iraq War from the beginning and believed Bush
Administration lies; voted with Republicans to surrender Congress's war
power to the White House (Obama was not in Congress yet and initially
opposed the war, but softened his opposition after election to the US
Senate)
-- continued to give President Bush funding for the occupation after
gaining control of Congress: both Clinton and Obama voted for funding
bills
-- offer delayed and vague timetables for troop withdrawal, and would
leave some troops in Iraq
-- support 'benchmarks' giving US and UK corporations control over Iraqi
oil, which would require continued US troop presence in Iraq to protect
corporate interests

Foreign Policy

Green Party & Green candidates
-- strongly oppose President Bush's threat to attack Iran
-- support an end to the US occupation of Afghanistan, opposed invasion
-- support cutoff of military aid to Israel, demand US pressure on Israel
to end the brutal occupation of Palestine and suppression of Palestinian
and Israeli Arab human rights, in accord with international law and UN
directives
-- seek an end to the US embargo of Cuba
-- favor nonviolent solutions to international conflict

Democratic leadership, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama
-- have signed on to President Bush's threat to attack Iran (both Clinton
and Obama have said that an attack on Iran is not off the table)
-- support continued US occupation and war on Afghanistan
-- do not criticize Israel, dismiss international law and UN directives on
Israeli apartheid and occupation of Palestinian lands
-- favor continued embargo of Cuba
-- have supported most Bush foreign policy agenda: invasion and threats of
invasion; broken international treaties; contemptuous treatment of US
allies

Global Warming, Energy, & the Environment

Green Party & Green candidates
-- call for far-reaching short-term and long-term cuts in greenhouse gas
emissions
-- favor major conservation programs to cut US energy consumption
-- seek widespread economic reorganization and millions of new jobs in
conservation and conversion to safe, clean energy sources
-- oppose nuclear energy, which creates huge amounts of toxic waste and
multiple security risks
-- oppose widespread conversion to bio-fuels that require agricultural land
needed for food production
-- seek restrictions and oversight on genetically modified organisms,
especially food

Democratic leadership, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama
-- favor modest long-term cuts in greenhouse gas emissions
-- don't talk about conservation and cuts in consumption
-- support nuclear energy and biofuel production (Obama receives major
campaign contributions from nuclear and ethanol industries and supports
their goals)
-- support or are silent on genetically modified organisms and food

Impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney

Green Party & Green candidates
-- endorse impeachment of Bush and Cheney for high crimes and
misdemeanors: deception and manipulation of intelligence to justify the
invasion of Iraq; cover-ups of information about impending 9/11 attacks;
use of torture; denial of habeas corpus and due process; warrantless
surveillance of US citizens; hundreds of 'signing statements' to exempt
the President from executing over 1,000 federal laws; censoring and
tampering with scientific research to conceal the seriousness of global
warming; responsibility for the deaths of as many as one million Iraqi
civilians and over 4,000 US servicemembers

Democratic leadership, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama
-- oppose and block motions for impeachment, despite Bush Administration's
numerous crimes and abuses of power

Health Care Reform

Green Party & Green candidates
-- support Single-Payer National Health Care (Medicare For All), which
would provide all Americans with quality health care regardless of ability
to pay, employment, age, or prior medical condition: Single-Payer will
remove corporate HMOs and insurance firms from control over health care,
give Americans choice of health care provider, provide no-cost or low-cost
prescriptions based on need, and ease the burden on physicians and other
health care providers

Democratic leadership, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama
-- oppose Single-Payer
-- favor health care reform plans that leave profit-making HMOs and
insurance firms in control over health care
-- take hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporate HMOs, insurance
firms, and pharmaceutical manufacturers

War on Drugs & the Justice System

Green Party & Green candidates
-- oppose the War on Drugs, calling it a war on African American, Latino,
poor, and young people
-- favor decriminalization (especially for marijuana), medical treatment
for drug abuse instead of prosecution
-- oppose privatization of prisons, which require increasing numbers of
inmates for corporate profits: the US has the highest incarceration rate
in the world
-- call for abolition of the death penalty

Democratic leadership, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama
-- support the War on Drugs
-- either support or are silent on privatization of prisons
-- support the death penalty

Labor & Economic Justice

Green Party & Green candidates
-- oppose 'free trade' agreements and unelected international trade
authorities (NAFTA, FTAA, WTO, GATT, etc.) that give corporate power and
profit priority over labor rights and environmental protections
-- call for repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act (restricting union organizing),
support democratic workplaces
-- favor a strong safety net for middle- and low-income working people,
support for small businesses and local economies
-- support human rights protection for undocumented immigrants: Greens
call the flood of new immigrants a result of economic policies and
agreements (e.g., NAFTA) that impoverish people and drive them across
borders

Democratic leadership, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama
-- have supported and voted for 'free trade' agreements and unelected
international trade authorities
-- are silent on Taft-Hartley, don't deliver for working people despite
Election Year endorsements from unions
-- support economic policies that favor the wealthy, major corporations,
and Wall Street, with limited aid for poor and middle-income Americans
(Clinton and Obama support the 1996 Welfare Reform Act signed by Bill
Clinton, which severely hurt millions of Americans, especially women,
during the recent economic downturn)
-- favor policies that scapegoat immigrants for economic problems

Democracy and Fair Elections

Green Party & Green candidates
-- take no money from corporate contributors
-- led effort to expose Republican obstruction of Ohio voters and
manipulation of votes in 2004: Green presidential nominee David Cobb (with
Libertarian nominee Michael Badnarik) initiated the Ohio recount campaign
and raised money for legal fees
-- seek public financing of elections, free time on public airwaves for
all candidates, repeal of ballot access laws restricting third party and
independent candidates
-- support instant runoff voting, proportional representation, and other
reforms to ensure democracy in US elections
-- support statehood for the District of Columbia, with self-government
and full representation in Congress equal to other states

Democratic leadership, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama
-- take hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporate contributors
-- had minimal response to election irregularities in Ohio, minimal
reaction to the Conyers Commission's evidence that the 2004 election may
have been stolen: only one Democratic Senator (Barbara Boxer) stood up to
support African American Congress-members' protest at Senate's confirmation
of Bush reelection in January 2005
-- are silent on many needed election reforms: Democrats and Republicans
together worked to pass laws limiting third party and independent
participation in elections
-- favor a single voting seat in the US House for DC (statehood for DC was
removed from the Democratic Party platform in 2004)

Human Rights & Social Justice

Green Party & Green candidates
-- oppose the USA Patriot Act and favor repeal
-- support full and equal recognition for same-sex marriage
-- support reparations for the descendants of African American slaves in
the US

Democratic leadership, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama
-- support the USA Patriot Act: Clinton voted for passage; Clinton and
Obama voted for reauthorization
-- favor limited and unequal recognition for same-sex marriage
-- oppose or have no position on reparations for the descendents of slaves

Produced by: Scott McLarty a member of the Lavender Greens of Minnesota.

Elliot Spitzer and America's Ethical Perversity

by Rabbi Michael Lerner

The cross-the-political-spectrum attacks on Elliot Spitzer and the intensity of the demands that he resign his office show just how far the Right-wing sexual moralizing has been able to trump any other kind of ethical reasoning in American society.

Going to a prostitute is legal in some states and some countries around the world, and is often the very arrangement that saves families from splitting up whose sexual energies have diminished but whose love is intact. It's not uncommon for men (and now increasingly women as well) who have achieved great power in our society by adopting an outer show of ruthless pursuit of power and influence (even, as in Spitzer's case, if the power is aimed at pursuing laudable ends) to feel a deep emptiness and loneliness that is not addressed by friends or spouse, and hence to seek some kind of outside connection no matter how superficial that is not bound by previous rules and roles. Nevertheless, I and many others in the religious and spiritual world oppose that practice when it involves adultery or prostitution, because it depends on the objectification of another human being, so that sex is disconnected in ways that it should not be from a significant encounter with the spirit of God in the other or a deep recognition that is the only real way to overcome existential or situational alienation.

Moreover, the trade in women for sexual purposes has frequently led to rape and abuse and the kidnapping of young women who are sold into sexual slavery. All of these outrageous practices are abhorrent and should be challenged. The flaunting of sexuality in the media, and the implicit message that the only real satisfaction comes from having the most physically attractive people as sexual partners, not only generates huge dissatisfaction even as it allows corporate advertise to become predators manipulating our personal sense of inadequacy to sell their products, but also generates desires that feed the sexual trade in women. Given this larger social context, until sexual satisfaction is so broadly available in our society that no one has to pay for it and so deeply tied to love that no one is objectified in the process, this kind of exploitation of women and degradation of sex is likely to continue. All of these practices foster the sexual predators of the contemporary world.

So Elliot Spitzer deserves to be critiqued and ought to be doing deep atonement for what he did. His previous moral arrogance and willingness when he had power to do so to prosecute others for their participation in creating prostitution rings makes him an easy target. We, in turn, might practice the forgiveness that our religious and spiritual traditions preach, particularly those of us who have been willing to honeslty face how flawed we ourselves are, and how at times we ourselves fail to embody in our actual practice with others the values that we publicly espouse. Humility and compassion are also part of the path of a spiritual progressive.

But the intensity of the critique of the N.Y. governor, tied with the demand that he resign, shows more about American society's ethical perversity than about Spitzer.

The President of the U.S. and the Vice President, working in concert with several other high ranking officers of our government, lied and distorted to get us involved in a war that has led to the death of over a million Iraqis, the displacement of 3 million more, the death of 4,000 Americans and the wounding of tens of thousands more. After token opposition in Congress, our elected representatives have overwhelmingly passed budgets funding this war, rather than refuse to fund any military projects until the President stopped the war and withdrew the troops.

Meanwhile, our government has overtly engaged in torture, wiretapping of our phones, and violation of our human rights and the rights of people around the world. Senator Diane Feinstein and Senator Charles Schumer votes to confirm as Attonrey General a right-wing judge who refused to repudiate these crimes.

The U.S. government has rejected every attempt to implement the Kyoto environmental agreements or to work out new agreements sufficiently strong to reverse environmental destruction that is certain to lead to new levels of flooding particularly in several poor countries around the world. The consequence: tens of millions of deaths.

The Clinton Administration pushed, along with corporate support, a set of trade agreements that have devastated the farmers of many developing countries, forcing many off their farms and into city slums where their daughters and sons are often sold into sexual slavery. The global economic system we have fostered has led to increasing gaps between the rich and the poor, so that over one out of every three people on the planet lives on less than $2 a day, 1.5 billion live on less than one dollar a day, and over 15,000 children die every day from malnutrition-related diseases and inadequate availability of medicine that is hoarded by the rich countries who can afford the prices made to ensure huge profits to the pharmaceutical industry.

Health insurance companies and private medical profiteers are doing all they can to ensure that there will be no health care for tens of millions of Americans, unless that is provided in ways that guarantee corporate super-profits and thereby guarantee that the cost of health care paid through taxes will be huge and create anger at all government social welfare and well-being programs, leading to their likely de-funding.
People in the US have faced severe economic crises on a regional and soon on a national level because corporations move their centers of production to countries in Asia where they can exploit workers with less government or union interference and where they can destroy the environment with less societal restraints. Wild to achieve greater profits, corporations and the rich have managed to support politicians who lower the taxes on the rich, in the process bankrupting the public sector or severely reducing its ability to provide enough funds for quality education, health care, libraries, public transportation, and social welfare.

That there is no outcry for these government officials and corporate leaders to resign immediately or be impeached, that there is no moral outrage at the entire system that produces this impact, is America's ethical perversity. Instead, the only crime against humanity that the media takes seriously and the politicians fear is being exposed for personal sexual immorality. While everyone basks in their own self-righteous demands on Spitzer, we all allow media and elected officials to fundamentally distort our ethical vision and play out our morality on the smallest of possible stages while ignoring the global and personal consequences of our larger ethical failures.

Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun magazine www.tikkun.org <http://www.tikkun.org> , Chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives www.spiritualprogressives.org <http://www.spiritualprogressives.org> , rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue-without-walls in San Francisco and Berkeley, and author of The Left Hand of God. He welcomes comments at RabbiLerner@tiikkun.org

If you agree with this perspective, call your local media and ask that it be presented alongside the mainstream views. And help us continue to provide alternative analyses by joining the Network of Spiritual Progressives (www.spiritualprogressives.org) and urging your friends to do so as well!

No excuse for recycling apathy

The lack of effort by students and staff is disheartening and maddening, especially since it is relatively easy.

By Chelsey Perkins

he physical act of tossing a bottle or can into a recycling bin is no more strenuous than that of throwing it into a trash can. Of course, you might need to walk a few extra feet, or make room for the recyclable in your bag until you find the proper place to dispose of it. But these are not difficult tasks, nor are they emotionally stressful or a financial burden.

So I cannot understand for the life of me why so many people not only do not make the negligible amount of extra effort needed to recycle items like cans and bottles that are the easiest to recycle rather than trash them, but act affronted by the mere concept.

Of course, I know there are many people who do make the effort, and I also know that outside of cities with comprehensive recycling programs, it might be difficult and maybe even impossible to recycle certain items. In my own hometown, for example, there is no recycling pick-up at all, and the closest recycling drop-off no longer accepts plastic.

But here on campus, for the most part, a majority of the effort has already been made for us. If you have yet to notice, bins all over the place, compartmentalized nicely and neatly, make it possible to rid yourself of last week's Sudoku, your empty Diet Coke bottle and the rest of that $2 burrito you couldn't bring yourself to finish all in one go. In most classrooms I've been in, three separate bins stand directly next to one another, labeled clearly.

Yet I regularly see people throw recyclables into the trash even though literally a foot away they could recycle them.

A friend told me this weekend that her parents poke fun at her when she asks them to recycle; another friend of mine waited until she found a recycling bin for her newspaper and her brother asked, "So, what, are you like an environmentalist now?"

As our world faces an environmental crisis like we have never seen before, the tasks before us seem daunting and nearly unattainable and it is easy to feel helpless. It's not as though the average person can simply waltz into Exxon Mobil and shut them down or halt clear-cutting in the Brazilian Rain Forest.

Why, then, is one of the tasks possible for an individual to complete on their own, a task that undeniably is crucial to environmental health, so often brazenly disregarded?

Even if you subscribe to the notion that humans are not the cause of global warming or could care less what happens to the planet after you're gone, why not just put that bottle in the freaking recycling bin when it is right there in front of you?

The thing is, although it might seem like a long shot, we can as individuals make a difference for our environment by the products we buy and the sustainable habits we commit to. Collectively, we have unlimited power to make change on the environmental front.

If you feel like that one bottle will not make a difference, multiply that by the 50,000 or more people that are on this campus every day for nine months, and you can see what kind of impact can be made. Whether it's a positive or negative one is up to you and which of the three slots you choose.

Chelsey Perkins welcomes your comments at cperkins AT mndaily.com

source: http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2007/12/04/72164839


[ Minnesota has tens of thousands employed in the recycling industry. One of my battle buddies at basic training in the Minnesota National Guard works at one of the factories.

Each can of aluminum you recycle saves a bit more than half a cup of oil. Recycling is interconnected to the economy, natural resources, Global Warming, Peak Oil, and municipal taxes.

Even if you pay $3 a month to do this in suburbs such as Brooklyn Park, you are still making a profound difference. ]

Target sells non-Organic at Organic prices

I wrote this letter today for Target. It concerns their lack of discipline selling organic foods, specifically milk. Feel free to modify a copy and send a letter yourself! Keep corporations informed of the need to have a healthy economy means caring for our home ( Earth ).

Kevin Chavis
2406 17th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55404

T 612 7290330

September 30, 2007
Robert J. Ulrich
Chairman and CEO
Target Corporation
1000 Nicollet Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55403

Dear Robert,

I am rather upset about an article I recently read in the Sunday edition of the Star Tribune. It appears that your Archer Farms brand sells milk that claims to be Organic but is not. You can claim that it was potentially organic, but that would be very hard to buy. The organic food industry is very lucrative, and like any other rapidly expanding market, ripe for corruption. This is a black mark on your company and taints my opinion of the entire Archer Farms brand.

I am fully aware that Archer Farms is a brand. It sounds like a true farm, and does probably mislead masses. The City Pages ran an article about the brand and its ambitious plans. I think it is great that you create store brands that create added value for your store. I was hoping you would go the route of Roundy’s organic store brands, marketing at us eco-conscious consumers. But the organic milk incident does not help your cause.

Honestly, my preference for food shopping starts with the local coops, then Rainbow, and lastly you. The potential for change is there, especially if you focus on relocalizing your store contents. But this latest incident only reifies what organic consumers fear, that major corporations do not care about the standards and only want our money. I am not an anti-capitalist, my priority is fixing our environment through the dollar.

Here’s a way to regain our confidence: go beyond the ho-hum spiffy organic of the corporate market. Ensure that your suppliers are adequately certified. Label the products in a way that consumers can virtually visit the farms as Organic Valley does. And inform the public of the value of organic foods - health, environment, and local agriculture economy. A carbon impact label would also be helpful, as Wal-Mart now keeps track of several items. Visit the Wedge Coop - you get a receipt that shows you the percentage of products you purchased locally!

As savvy as Target has been this century, I am certain you will find a way to strike a balance between profit and the common good. Your actions make a huge impact, whether that is positive or not long-term will be determined by choices made today.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely yours,


Kevin Chavis
------
further sources:

City Pages: The Farm that doesn't exist
Star Trib: Was Target's organic milk just regular?

The Energy Emergency

By Mortimer B. Zuckerman

Oil is America's Achilles heel. WE are addicted to it. Every American consumer burns about double what a European consumes—26 barrels a year for us, 12 for Europeans. We have 5 percent of the world's population and consume 25 percent of the world's oil, and we have only 3 percent of the world's reserves. If you think there is a gas crunch now, marked by the largest oil price spike in a generation, it will be a bagatelle when China and India bring a couple of billion more people on to their highways: They are replicating our love affair with the automobile. Expect them within a generation to buy 80 million cars.

We are in a new world order. The balance of power has shifted between the fuel-guzzling West and the oil-rich producing countries. They have increasing leverage over us, with political, economic, and military consequences. We are literally over a barrel.

Here's how the chips fall. After World War II, the oil world was dominated by the "Seven Sisters," the name given to the oil companies controlling Middle East oil. These have shrunk to four: Chevron, British Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, and Royal Dutch Shell. They have been pushed aside by seven state-owned national companies, Seven Brothers, if you like: Saudi Arabia's Aramco, Russia's Gazprom, CNPC of China, NIOC of Iran, Venezuela's PDVSA, Brazil's Petrobras, and Petronas of Malaysia. The Seven Brothers control almost a third of the world's oil and gas production and more than a third of its total oil and gas reserves. By contrast, the survivors of the Seven Sisters control only about 10 percent of output and hold just 3 percent of the reserves. The Brothers are the rule makers, the international oil companies the rule takers. It is not going to change. In the next 40 years, 90 percent of new supplies, according to the International Energy Agency, will come from developing countries. Thirty years ago, 40 percent came from the industrialized nations.

Massive consequences. Nor is oil discovery keeping pace with demand. In 1930, we found 10 billion new barrels of oil and used 1.5 billion; in 1964, we discovered 48 billion barrels and consumed approximately 12 billion; in 1988, we found 23 billion barrels and used 23 billion barrels; in 2005, we found 5 billion to 6 billion barrels and consumed 30 billion barrels. With countries like China and India now in the mix, worldwide demand is growing by an average of 2 million to 3 million barrels a day every year. The world has to discover a new Saudi Arabia-size oil supplier every five years to meet this demand. But it's just not going to happen. These overwhelming numbers could produce oil prices above $100 a barrel in short order, which will ultimately have massive consequences for the world's economy and the way we live our lives. They might well cause a global recession.

How will we in the West cope when by 2030 the IEA nations will have to import 85 percent of their oil (it's 63 percent today)? None of the oil companies are investing enough. Big Oil in the West is allocating as much as 60 percent of profits to dividends and stock buybacks and reinvesting only about a third in the oil business. And the Seven Brothers are keeping an ever tighter leash on both production and investment.

They have the money, all right. Revenues have roughly doubled in the past four years. But their governments see high prices for us as meaning more income for them, while they see investment in new capacity as risking the kind of sharp price decline that occurred in the 1990s. So the national energy firms are obliged to dedicate a big chunk of their profits to support national treasuries and various political constituencies.

Mexico has treated its oil company as a national bank vault; Hugo Chávez of Venezuela spends two thirds (that's now about $7 billion) of PDVSA's budget on populist social programs; Gazprom spends the majority of its money on nonenergy activities such as banks and media companies. Even worse, because these national companies have become a source of political patronage, they are short of skilled workers and experienced managers. National pride inhibits them from relying on the technological skills of the western companies, so they don't have the professionals needed to grow their production (with the exception of Saudi Aramco and, to some extent, Petrobras). We can no longer count on the Middle East to act as the world's energy shock absorber, raising output to meet a shortage.

So much for supply. Simultaneously, the oil-producing countries are consuming more of their own production. While China's energy appetite has grabbed the headlines, by the end of this decade alone, domestic consumption will reduce the oil exports of the producers by as much as 2.5 million barrels a day. And they are guzzlers. How could they not be when gasoline prices in places like Venezuela, Iran, and the rest of the Middle East are as little as a tenth of U.S. domestic prices, averaging between 20 and 80 cents a gallon?

The net effect of all this is that the world is going to be even more energy dependent on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia. Keeping oil safe for the West once meant safeguarding supply lines from the Middle East. Now we have to build alliances and deploy ships and troops to protect other supply routes outside the Middle East, going as far as the Caspian Sea, the Andean region of South America, and West Africa.

There are other political complications inhibiting new supplies. In many countries, environmental issues have become absolutist. They conflict with the capacity to tap additional energy resources in Alaska, not to speak of the continental shelf in the waters off the lower 48 states, which, according to a recent study by the National Petroleum Council, contains enough oil to provide gasoline for 116 million cars for 47 years. Some trade-off is going to have to be considered, and this will roil the political scene forever.

As for conservation, it is not enough for the West to improve its own energy policies. Countries such as India and China must also do so. We don't know how fast these countries can and will reduce the energy intensity of their own rapid economic growth. How are we going to maintain our efforts to fight global warming by curtailing carbon dioxide when consumers in developing countries thirsting for oil will want to resort to abundant national sources of coal? They will argue that they are entitled to a phase of cheap (that is, coal) energy-intensive economic development. Is it fair, they argue, to penalize them for coming late to the development party when rich countries, during their period of rapid growth, were allowed to use as much energy as they wished with no restrictions?

Political purposes. Then there are the implications of state-owned companies in countries like Russia and Venezuela that are not just responding to market forces but are using their pricing and power for political purposes. The income generated by oil exports has supported their authoritarian regimes, which means that political reform and liberalization may suffer as the oil wealth is used by leaders in producer states to buy off their opposition. The oil revenues have clearly helped Vladimir Putin in Russia, Chávez in Venezuela, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran. Indeed, they deliberately seek control of the energy sectors to make sure that they themselves are the source of opportunity and wealth for their people. So how is our policy of promoting democracy going to work when this oil wealth tends to empower authoritarian elites?

The big winners will be countries like Russia and the Middle East oil producers, including Iran. The big losers will be the poorer countries. The wealthier countries can absorb higher prices because of the continuing declines in the energy intensity of their growth. But poorer countries will be disadvantaged even more. Look at a poor country like Pakistan, which doesn't have oil and may lose as much as 10 percent of its gross domestic product over the next 25 years to higher oil prices. Pakistan's economy doesn't work well even today, and its demographic curve shows a continuing rise in population.

In America, the energy crunch will intensify a lot of old political issues and bring in some new ones. We have witnessed the bipartisan failure to institute a vigorous program of conservation. We have not even been able to enact an adequate, graduated program of targets for automobile and truck gas mileage. Despite their public advocacy and political promises, the Democrats in Congress have failed to take steps to deal with these issues. In fact, we live in a political culture where neither the Republicans nor the Democrats wish to ask Americans to make sacrifices, including taxes to reduce our consumption of gasoline. Just think: If our cars had the same energy efficiencies as Europe's today, we could save 4 million barrels a day-the equivalent of Iran's total production.

This whole question of energy should be a central issue in the presidential campaign. But which of the candidates has the nerve and ingenuity to devise a way of meeting environmental concerns while seeking reliable domestic production of energy at home? We certainly cannot assume that alternative energy sources will have a major impact on an acceptable cost basis. We can build as many wind farms as we like, or as many ethanol plants, but it is not going to be possible to make much of a dent at an acceptable cost, because of the enormous volume of our daily imports of oil.

We are facing a world of higher prices and increasingly tighter supplies, creating a growing gap between worldwide demand and worldwide production, at a time when non-OPEC energy production is peaking within a few years. Eventually, this will make us even more dependent on OPEC?with all of what that means. We also can't seem to develop an appropriate energy policy that by definition will take years to implement, so that delays are only postponing the higher costs to the next generation.

It is we who are placing our own country over a barrel now.

This story appears in the September 10, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.

Minnesota Peak Oil and Global Warming Conference - details

	Search NextStep Action Search | Help

NextStep home Registration closed: Conference full Agenda Keynote speakers Getting there For more information Sponsored by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Cosponsors Association of Metropolitan Municipalities Association of Minnesota Counties Fresh Energy Greater Minnesota Housing Fund ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability USA League of Minnesota Cities Metropolitan Council Minnesota Association of School Administrators Minnesota Association of Townships Minnesota Chapter of the American Planning Association Minnesota School Boards Association Minnesota Rural Partners Neighborhood Energy Connection University of Minnesota Extension University of Minnesota Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships

Preparing Your Community for Climate and Energy Change: Opportunities for Local Sustainability Wednesday, June 6, 2007, 8:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. Continuing Education and Conference Center, University of Minnesota, St. Paul Campus | map and directions A free conference for local elected officials, local government staff, and other community leaders. Learn about projected climate change impacts in Minnesota Track global energy trends that can impact communities Hear case studies from local governments Envision a positive lower-energy future Discuss how to overcome barriers to action Access resources for taking action at the community level Identify opportunities that have benefits now Receive valuable free printed resources Why attend this conference? Minnesota communities face serious challenges due to the interrelated issues of climate change and a projected decline in the global availability of fossil fuels — peak oil. This conference offers local community leaders and concerned citizens an opportunity to learn about the current situation and future projections regarding climate change and energy availability, the risk management implications, and what can be done to adapt to these trends. Examples from local governments that are taking action will be presented. The conference will also include discussion about next steps and identifying barriers to change, as well as topic sessions to help communities consider opportunities related to energy, food, buildings, and other areas. Many of these actions for a lower-energy future are “no-regrets” strategies — useful regardless of how climate and energy trends unfold. They have benefits for communities now, and can increase our local quality of life and benefit the global environment. Who should attend this conference? Local government elected officials, staff and volunteers Nonprofit organizations, including community and civic organizations and public interest groups Tribal governments State agencies Interested individuals Agenda Printer-friendly agenda Concurrent Afternoon Sessions: 2:45 – 4:00 p.m. Green Building and Community Development Strategies Warren Hanson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Greater Minnesota Housing Fund Rick Carter, AIA, Vice President, LHB John Shardlow, AICP, Principal, DSU/Bonestroo Keeping Energy Supplies and Money Local Bruce Anderson, Sustainable Community Solutions Jimmie Sparks, Residential Energy Program Manager, Neighborhood Energy Connection Ken Smith, Vice President, District Energy St. Paul Strengthening Communities with Diverse Transportation Options Russ Stark, Executive Director, Midway Transportation Management Organization Jan Parker, Ramsey County Commissioner Tim Springer, Executive Director, Midtown Greenway Coalition Local Food as Economic Development Ken Meter, President, Crossroads Resource Center Dayna Burtness, Co-founder, Saint Olaf Garden Research and Organic Works (STOGROW) Kristin Johnson, Intern, STOGROW Rob Smith, Intern, STOGROW Community Water and Tree Management in a Changing Climate Julie Westerlund, Communications and Education Coordinator, Minnehaha Creek Watershed District Ken Holman, Community Forestry Coordinator, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Minneapolis Case Study: One Community’s Response Elizabeth Glidden, Member, Minneapolis City Council Gayle Prest, Manager of Sustainability, City of Minneapolis 8:00 – 8:30 Registration, exhibit booths, refreshments 8:30 – 8:45 Welcome and introductory remarks Brad Moore, Commissioner, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Mary Hamann-Roland, Mayor, Apple Valley 8:45 – 9:30 Climate Change Trends in Minnesota J. Drake Hamilton, Science Policy Director, Fresh Energy 9:30 – 10:15 A Time of Challenges and Opportunities for Communities Gord Miller, Environmental Commissioner of Ontario 10:15 – 10:45 Morning break 10:45 – 11:30 Meeting the Energy and Climate Challenge: One Community at a Time Dan Richardson, Senior Energy Consultant, Schmueser Gordon Meyer 11:30 - 12:15 A Vision for Energy Security in the 21st Century Julian Darley, President, Post Carbon Institute 12:15 - 1:15 Lunch 1:15 - 2:30 Overcoming Barriers to Action and Taking the Next Step Moderated discussion sessions to identify opportunities and sources of assistance 2:30 – 2:45 Afternoon break 2:45 – 4:00 Concurrent afternoon sessions Keynote speakers Julian Darley is president of the nonprofit Post Carbon Institute. Post Carbon’s projects include the Relocalization Network, Global Public Media, Climate and Energy Municipal Action Program, and Oil Depletion Protocol. Darley is author of High Noon for Natural Gas: the New Energy Crisis (2004) and co-author of the forthcoming Relocalize Now! Getting Ready for Climate Change and the End of Cheap Oil. J. Drake Hamilton is Science Policy Director for Fresh Energy, a nonprofit organization working to lead the transition to a clean energy system, one that will support healthy economies, healthy people, and a healthy environment. Hamilton is the principal author of Fresh Energy’s report, Playing with Fire: Climate Change in Minnesota and gives many invited talks each year on global warming and cost-effective energy solutions. Gord Miller is Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, an independent officer appointed by Ontario’s Legislative Assembly. Commissioner Miller’s role is to oversee the continued implementation of Ontario’s Environmental Bill of Rights. Prior to his appointment as Environmental Commissioner, he worked for Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment for 14 years. Dan Richardson works with Schmueser Gordon Meyer, an engineering firm based in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, where he specializes in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other climate action strategies for businesses and governmental entities. Until January 2007, he was Global Warming Manager for the city of Aspen, and manager of the city’s Canary Initiative. He is a former Glenwood Springs City Council member and chair of the Roaring Fork Transportation Authority. Getting there: Directions University of Minnesota Continuing Education and Conference Center 1890 Buford Ave., St. Paul, MN 612-624-3275 Map and driving directions to the conference center: www.cce.umn.edu/conferencecenter/directions.html Bus transit information: www.metrotransit.org or call 612-373-3333. Bicycle parking: www1.umn.edu/pts/parkbike.htm For more information Registration questions? Jennifer Holstad: email <jennifer.holstad@pca.state.mn.us> or call 651-296-7788 or 800-657-3864 toll free Technical questions? Paul Moss: email <paul.moss@pca.state.mn.us> or call 651-215-0243 or 800-657-3864 toll free Registration closed: Conference has reached capacity Thanks to strong interest in the event, the site of the conference has reached capacity and registration for this conference is now closed. If you would like to be informed of future events on this topic sponsored by the MPCA's Sustainable Development unit, email us with the following information: Name Organization Postal address City, State, Zip Email address Email to Paul Moss <paul.moss@pca.state.mn.us>.

---

---

	MnSCN is a program of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
NextStep/MnSCN Privacy Statement

Debra J. Saunders: Green guv believes you can have it all

Schwarzenegger talks up a storm about global warming, but does little to conserve.

Debra J. Saunders

Published: April 20, 2007

When President Jimmy Carter wanted Americans to conserve energy in 1979, he set an example by wearing a sweater and turning down the White House thermostat. Today, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger boasts that he is a world leader in the fight against global warming -- but his advocacy shouldn't keep him from flying in private jets or driving a Hummer.

The gas-guzzling governator is on the cover of Newsweek. The Austrian Oak is now global warming's jolly green giant.

Last week at Georgetown University, Schwarzenegger explained how he was making environmentalism more attractive. The problem with enviros, he said, was that people thought they "were no fun" -- "like prohibitionists at a fraternity party."

Plan Arnold is to turn environmentalism from a phenomenon based on guilt to a successful movement "built on passion." Call it You-Can-Have-It-All Environmentalism.

Sure, the Republican governor told Georgetown students, enviros used to criticize (real) men like him for "powering my private airplanes. So it is too bad, of course, that we can't all live simple lives like the Buddhist monks in Tibet. But you know something. That's not going to happen."

Translation: Schwarzenegger can boast about signing a bill that calls for California to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by the year 2020 -- but don't expect him to curb his own super-size emissions.

It was not that long ago that your average politicians did not want to be seen owning a few big SUVs while pushing for more stringent federal fuel-efficiency standards for American cars. They did not want to be branded as hypocrites.

Now Al Gore, who hyperconsumes energy in his Tennessee home, and Schwarzenegger, who is always jumping on a private jet after eco-friendly media events, can burn energy like the most flagrant energy hogs.

As long as they say they believe in global warming, they personally don't have to do much about global warming.

Spokesman Aaron McLear told me that the governor is looking into solar panels for his home and buys credits to offset his carbon footprint.

Schwarzenegger also converted one of his four Hummers to hydrogen power -- actually, GM converted the car and lets Schwarzenegger drive it when he wants -- and another to biodiesel.

"It's not the car," McLear explained, "it's the engine."

Also, Schwarzenegger does not drive much these days -- the California Highway Patrol drives him.

That's not enough. I do not expect Schwarzenegger to ride the bus. But he should not hype his GM-converted Hummer as "environmentally muscular." He should show some respect for fuel-efficient cars -- those we mere mortals can afford -- and try flying commercial.

Get out some, and meet a few real folk -- in first class.

Because, while Schwarzenegger boasted at Georgetown that California is "sending the world a message" on global warming, his behavior and his rhetoric send a different signal: Conserving energy is for girlie men.

I will receive many e-mails defending Schwarzenegger -- all along the lines that at least he believes in global warming. And he has signed bills to force other people to conserve in the future.

After all, no one really expects stars or rich people to sacrifice.

All the glitterati have to do is really believe in global warming, maybe ride in a hybrid to the Oscars -- and then their carbon trails (which are much larger than those of people who take the bus every day) won't stink.

It's laughable. Those who believe that global warming is caused by man -- I am agnostic on that score -- claim that they are on the side of Science. That's Science with a capital S.

Yet they applaud when a so-called leader on global warming speaks as if "environmentally muscular" technologies and carbon offsets can manufacture a 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020. They have this odd belief that the key to fighting global warming is not by cutting energy use, but by believing in global warming.

They embrace wishful thinking -- and call it science.

Debra J. Saunders' column is distributed by Creators Syndicate.